Open Search Urged for UN Rights Job

by Neil MacFarquahar, The New York Times, June 10, 2008

The online advertisement that appeared Monday on The Economist magazine’s Web site seemed straightforward enough, seeking candidates for the position of United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

The advertisement, however, was a fake, a protest paid for by Avaaz.org, an online advocacy group. The organization is among a number of human rights organizations, United Nations diplomats and other watchdog groups critical of what they call the lack of transparency in selecting the next commissioner, one of the highest-profile and most delicate jobs in the United Nations hierarchy.

“It is a general problem that top appointments in the United Nations system are often made in back rooms behind closed doors where candidates who meet the lowest common denominator win,” said Ricken Patel, a Canadian who is the executive director of Avaaz.org. “A more open process requires bad candidates to face the test of public scrutiny.” The advertisement, which cost about $10,000, also ran in this week’s print edition of the magazine and carried a disclaimer identifying it as having been written and paid for by the group.

Those tracking the selection of the high commissioner were expecting greater transparency after the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, circulated a letter in March announcing that the search would be an open process and that it would include comment from governments and outside organizations.

His predecessor, Kofi Annan, had made it a practice to publicize short lists of candidates for top jobs, but Mr. Ban has been more circumspect. Senior aides to Mr. Ban declined to comment.

The candidates whose names are being bandied about inside the United Nations rumor mill include Navanethem Pillay, a South African judge on the International Criminal Court who led the investigation into the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Luis Alfonso de Alba, a Geneva-based United Nations diplomat from Mexico; and Francis Deng, a Sudanese professor of international law.

Outside organizations also said that the back-room feel to the selection process was not entirely Mr. Ban’s fault, and that major countries preferred to negotiate for positions behind the scenes.

Asha-Rose Migiro, the deputy secretary general leading the selection process, met with about a half-dozen outside organizations last Friday to hear their concerns but would not release any names of the candidates being considered. United Nations diplomats and officials with human rights groups said it had been extremely difficult to find out who else was on the selection panel, not to mention who had been interviewed.

“We still don’t know who is on the short list or what the process is going forward,” said Andrew Hudson, an Australian lawyer with Human Rights First.

Diplomats noted that keeping the process largely under wraps was a form of insurance against excessive lobbying by member states.

“Saying the actual process is not transparent, I don’t think, is quite correct,” said Michèle Montas, the spokeswoman for the secretary general. “We will certainly tell you more about it when we get closer to a decision.”

Louise Arbour, the Canadian prosecutor who is leaving the Geneva-based human rights post in July, has won kudos from rights advocates for her outspokenness. She clashed with the Bush administration after saying that human rights should not take a back seat in the campaign against terrorism.

“I think it is enormously important that whoever becomes the high commissioner is fearless when it comes to being outspoken,” said Steve Crawshaw, the United Nations advocacy director for the organization Human Rights Watch. “The concern is that there will be someone who won’t ruffle feathers.”